Pages

Saturday, December 31, 2011

What a year I/we have had! So much has happened in 2011, that when I look back it seems crazy that so many things can change in just one year. Here is a recap of what happened for me personally in the year 2011.

In January 2011 Grant and I were living in New Zealand enjoying the summer.

I had just started a new job as a receptionist and on the blog I started doing 2 challenges, a picture a day and the 30 for 30 challenge. I successfully finished the 30 for 30 remix challenge but sadly I did not finish the picture a day challenge. I think I made it for about 3 months before it became too much work.

In February we were still enjoying summer in NZ. My dad came to visit and catch a huge fish at sea. We continued to work and enjoy the sun, I got burned! On Tuesday February 27th 2011, a huge earth quake hit Christchurch and many lives were lost, and they are still till this day being hit with more and more earth quakes!

My car crapped out and I had to buy a new alternator. We visited Anna in Palmerston North, where we got our second flat tire in one month! We realized Grant can not plank. Our immigration papers came and we decided on moving to the USA on August 7th. Grant lost the hot curry challenge and I sold a ton of our personal belongings which turned out to only be the start of getting rid of almost every item we owned!

In July we: Took engagement photos, we sold everything we owned or gave it to the good will, I quit my job, we moved out of our place and into Grant's dads house, we closed all of our accounts, and we tried to spend quality time with our friends before we left.

We went to Bonneville to go racing, I started planning my wedding, I picked out my wedding dress, I got my wedding rings, we picked out wedding settings and I spent time with family and friends I have not seen in a year.

We got married on Oct first and from that point on the month just got more and more jam packed!

Grant and I went on a 2 day honey moon to Ocean side, we then took his brother to Vegas for the weekend. We spent time touring the out of town guests around CA and finally saying our sad goodbyes. Towards the end of the month I had my first art booth at the Hot Rod Reunion (which was a major success in my eyes), I got deathly sick, and I ended the month with turning 28 years old and dressing up like the day of the dead for Halloween!

November flew by! It seemed to include all the usual things, like Thanksgiving dinner and present buying.

December 2011

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

We had an excellent December. It was my first Christmas home in over 3 years and it really felt like nothing changed. I enjoyed every party and family gathering, often thinking to myself that if I was in NZ and knew all this was happening here without me I would often get very down and cry. So it really was nice to not miss out on all the family festivities.

December has brought some of the most happy times like Christmas morning and gift opening and also some very sad moments too! All in all it has been an awesome year filled with lots of laughter and fun and I can't wait till the next year to see what that will bring along!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Christmas 2011 is now over and we are all looking forward to the New Year!

On Christmas Eve we all went to my grandpa's house for lunch.

Ryder was the only one who got gifts. Grant got him a special remote control car.

Amanda and Keith

One tradition we have is on Christmas eve night we get to open one gift and it is always some new Christmas PJ's to wear for Christmas morning.

On Christmas morning our tradition that we have had forever is we wake up and first thing we do is open stockings. After stockings we have breakfast which is normally waffles and bacon.

After breakfast we open all our gifts. My mom acts as Santa's helper and hands out the gifts one by one and we take turns opening them so we can all see what we got rather than tear the gifts apart all at one time.

This is what I got!

This is what Grant got. I have the feeling Grant got the most gifts out of everyone.

Around 1pm all the family came to our house for an early dinner.

It was so sunny and warm out probably about 75 degrees.

It was a really nice Christmas and I don't think we could have asked for more !